Ortiz Gaming

Summary

Ortiz Gaming of Brazil, the largest maker of bingo software in the world, is developing a new technology platform for their arcade machines that will enable instant communication and software control from the globally distributed machines to their CPUs at HOSTING. Critical to their success: an infrastructure that can swap terabytes of data while remaining secure and robust.

Key Terms

“Ortiz Gaming’s explosive worldwide growth continues unabated, and with HOSTING’s superb infrastructure support, we are taking it to the next level in this industry. We will have online information available that will give us a competitive advantage in the market. The Always On advantage supplied by our partnership with HOSTING is critical to our business.”

SQL Server Database Administrator
Marcos Galvani

Maximum Uptime, Visibility and Control

Background

Ortiz Gaming develops and operates many types of game machines in countries all around the world. The machines, situated in gaming rooms, are hugely popular. But when they need servicing, the process is decidedly low-tech. Updating the machine’s software or collecting data on usage and statistics requires a site visit by technicians or contractors. This process is slow and cumbersome, not to mention that it provides ample opportunity for theft of competitive data and of the game software itself. The only security is site-based physical security. Part of Ortiz Gaming’s new strategy to address these issues is to enable automated software updates to each arcade machine and to collect detailed statistics on software usage.

Challenge

Ortiz Gaming developed a new embedded platform solution designed to take the arcade machine business to a new level of operations sophistication. The solution monitors software activity on each arcade machine then sends data back to the central processor. Not only is each arcade machine individually monitored, but aggregated data reveals which software in which part of a game room is more or less popular. This permits game room operators and Ortiz Gaming to maximize profitability by optimizing machine and game placement, removing less popular games and doing rapid testing, placement and deployment of new games. This is only one example of what is being done with this information.

Fixing game machine software is also quick with this automated approach, with little machine downtime. And the data they can collect will provide competitive, useful information for Ortiz Gaming’s customers. Powered by HOSTING’s data warehouse solution, Ortiz will able to deliver reports on demand to gaming customers, giving them the information they need when they need it.

Connectivity and processing speed to and from the machines is critical. Transferring data, gathering transaction information to the production servers and communicating with thousands of machines from worldwide sites requires a secure, robust and load-balanced infrastructure. Ortiz worked with HOSTING to develop the right architecture to facilitate their technology growth.

Solution

For Ortiz, HOSTING built a 6 terabyte IT infrastructure consisting of a data warehousing server, online transaction server, 2 web servers, and a reporting server. With firewalls, a VPN tunnel and self-managed data replications of SQL databases, this robust infrastructure also provides a global load balancing solution that ensures automatic failover among data centers. With a development site in HOSTING’s Denver data center and production sites in the Louisville and Newark data centers, the dynamic global load balancing maintains an unparalleled level of performance.

Results

With their dedicated HOSTING solution, Ortiz Gaming will be able to collect hundreds of megabytes of arcade machines data per day, consolidate it and transform it into unprecedentedly valuable information. This information will drive the future of the company, providing a roadmap for future product development and supplying creative ways to deepen partnerships with customers. HOSTING’s global load balancing and SQL server replication guarantees unparalleled uptime for Ortiz Gaming’s globally distributed systems.